


Under The Light Of A Full Moon

by Written_On_The_Trees



Series: The Trees' October 2020 Writing Challenge [31]
Category: Motionless in White (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, But enjoy this fic - it's cute!, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, I probably won't write a fic for that though, Magical Realism, October Prompt Challenge, Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fic, They don't get together in this fic - but in my head they're totally going to, Were-Creatures, so i'm sorry about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27289153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Written_On_The_Trees/pseuds/Written_On_The_Trees
Summary: Day 30 of my 31 October Writing Prompts. Prompt:Full Moon.Unlike every other Werecreature on the planet, Ricky hates the full moon and everything about it...until he doesn't, thanks to Motionless In White's new merch girl.
Relationships: Ricky "Horror" Olson/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Trees' October 2020 Writing Challenge [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949572
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Under The Light Of A Full Moon

In the past, were-creatures had worshipped the moon as a deity.

With the full moon, their abilities were at the strongest: shifts were easier, all their senses were more sensitive, the whole world felt like it was alight with energy. Magic felt like it was dancing through the air, and to a were-creatures and shifters, there was nothing that made them feel more alive than the night of the full moon.

Except for Ricky.

Ricky hated the full moon.

He despised it, loathed it, detested it, reviled it, abhorred it, felt revolted by it, was unable to stomach it…

Words never seemed enough to describe how much Ricky hated the full moon, despite how often Chris rolled his eyes and complained that, for someone who felt that way, Ricky certainly used enough of them, but that was the truth. Where other shifters felt at their most alive with all the magic in the air, Ricky just felt _itchy_. The full moon made him uncomfortable, no matter what skin he wore…and worse than that, he never felt more alone than he did on the night of the full moon.

The other shifters in the band didn’t get it; they weren’t like Ricky. Chris was a puma, he loped off to be on his own when he shifted, usually to go and sleep high up in the tree branches, abandoning the rest of them on the ground. Ryan, Justin, and Vinny were wolves, and they ran off together to do wolf shit together, their longer legs eating up the ground and leaving Ricky behind. They didn’t mean to, and always circled back to him when they realised - or Chris would drop out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of Ricky before play fighting or just forcing Ricky to curl up and go to sleep with him on a comfortable patch of leaves.

Both the pack animals and the loner made time for him, even though he never asked them, but Ricky knew that neither Chris or Ryan, Justin, and Vinny could fully enjoy being shifted when he was around, so he’d stopped shifting with them, waiting for them to all go off before changing forms and skulking around on his own.

It was awful.

Ricky was a fox, and although foxes weren’t quite pack animals like wolves were, they weren’t loners like pumas, either. He was meant to be around other foxes, but foxes were rare in the shifter community: so much so that Ricky had only ever met one other fox in his entire life. The woman who had adopted him when they found him bawling in an alleyway had been amazing - but she was gone now, and Ricky was alone.

Now it was the night before the full moon, and everyone had run off to be in their animal forms, and Ricky had volunteered to wait in to meet the replacement for their merch girl. Hyacinth was a nice witch, but she’d recently gotten pregnant, and a tour bus with a dozen different supernatural creatures on was not the best place for her and her unborn child. She’d held out until the record label could send a replacement, but now she was gone, and her replacement was due any minute.

_And as if by magic, there is the knock on the door._

Getting to his feet, Ricky took a second to wait until his skin felt like it had resettled - _fucking full moon_ \- and went to go and greet the new merch girl.

He opened the door…and froze.

The knowledge hit him like a wave - he didn’t know if it was her aura, or her scent, or something else entirely, but he looked at the merch and knew instinctively that she was like him. Another fox shifter.

“You’re a fox!”

Both of them exclaimed at exactly the time, probably wearing matching expressions of shock and excitement, if the sight of the woman’s face and the feel of his own was any indication, and then both of them started blushing.

Ricky couldn’t help but note how cute the woman looked with her dark skin flushing with the faintest shade of red - but she went from cute to beautiful when she played off the comment with a smile, her grin absolutely brilliant contrasting with the mahogany of her skin.

“Well, I’ve certainly had worse compliments,” she teased, flicking her braids back in was playfully flirty.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean - I just - uhm - ” Ricky stuttered, before regaining control of his mouth: “I didn’t mean to, like, come onto you or anything. It’s just been a long time since I met another fox shifter.”

“It’s okay, I know the feeling, other than my family, I don’t think I’ve met another one of us since…like…middle school.” came the reassuring response: “I’m Desirae, but you can call me Des.”

Ricky stuck his hand out and smiled in a way he hoped didn’t make him look like an idiot: “Ricky.”

Des took his hand with a grin of her own: “I should probably tell you in advance that I know all you guys by name; I’m a bit of a fan. Not a crazy one, but you might catch me singing one of your guys’ songs in the shower. Thought it might be better to tell you in advance.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” Ricky laughed, before helping her left her bags onto the bus: “Here, let me give you the tour while the bus is empty and there’s no-one to get underfoot.”

Ricky gave Des the tour, explained the trick to getting the hot water to work in the shower, and pointed out the shelf that hers in the kitchen cabinet: warning her to mark her name on things, or the wolves would get into it. Des seemed experienced in tour bus living, and adjusted quickly to the space, greeting all the others with a friendly smile when they made their way onto the bus bit by bit.

He didn’t comment, but Ricky could tell Chris was pleased - probably because he was one of the few people Ricky had confided in that he missed being around other foxes on the full moon.

Ricky’s suspicion were proved right when Chris ‘casually’ asked Des about her plans for the full moon tomorrow - which was a perfectly normal question for shifters to ask fellow shifters, but Ricky saw right through, just like he saw through Chris’s neutral façade when Des gave him a non-committal answer.

It was a disappointment Ricky shared.

Saying that he hadn’t wanted to spend the full moon with Des would be a lie, but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand. They were still strangers, and it was a pretty common attitude among shifters that time spent in your other skin was meant to be spent with friends and family and loved ones. Ricky hadn’t known Des for more than a few hours - would’ve only known her for a day by the time the moon rose tomorrow, so he got why she wouldn’t want to shift with him, even if it meant another full moon spent with his skin itching all over, the ground not quite feeling right under his paws, and feeling the all too familiar crippling loneliness as he looked up at the sky.

Was it a fun prospect? No. But it was something that he was used to, and Ricky was a grown-ass man: he’d suck it up and deal with it. Maybe next month he could approach Des, but until then he’d just grin and bear it.

He really wasn’t expecting Des to approach him…but that was exactly what she did, knocking on the outside of his bunk just seconds after Chris had leapt out of a skylight - _the fucking show-off_ \- and left the bus empty aside from her and Ricky.

She looked awkward when Ricky opened the curtain, but that didn’t stop her from being clear when she asked: “I wondered if you wanted to come and run with me?”

Ricky’s brain _heard_ the words…but didn’t quite manage to _understand_ them: “You want to shift together?”

“Only if you want to!” Des exclaimed quickly: “I won’t be offended if you’d rather catch up with one of the guys, or spend the night on your own, I just…well, I’m guessing you haven’t had the chance to run with another fox for a while, and I haven’t either and I know I missed it, so I just thought I’d offer.”

Finally, Ricky’s brain kicked into gear and scolded him for being an idiot: “Yes!”

“Yes?” Des asked, her expression relaxing and turning into something playful that made Ricky blush.

“Uh, yes.” he repeated, managing to sound a bit less like a teenage boy asked if he’d like to lose his virginity this time: “Yes, I’d really appreciate that. You’re right; I haven’t had the chance to shift with another fox for a long time.”

Des grinned, and led Ricky off of the bus.

They stood in the parking lot, and for once Ricky could feel the light of the full moon on his skin without wanting to scratch it off.

Des waited no time in shifting: disappearing in a haze of pale golden light, and reappearing as a lean, pale sandy coloured fox with short legs and big ears - a dessert fox. She yipped at him, and Ricky shifted himself, the world turning blue-grey for a second, before he opened his eyes again and found Des in a play bow: still shorter than him, but a lot less so now that he was on four legs too.

He barked once, and Des took off, letting Ricky chase her.

She was fast, for a fox with shorter legs than his own, and made up for his longer strides by being able to make sharp turns at the last minute, which sent him tumbling into things more than once. It was fucking fantastic, and Ricky was almost disappointed when he managed to nip her tail, tagging her as it, and marking it as his time to run and her turn to chase - but Des came out of nowhere not even minutes later, nipping his back leg, and making him it again.

They went back and forth for hours, past the wolves tiredly meandering back onto the bus, and past Chris wondering over to watch them disinterestedly from the top of the bus for a few minutes, until the moon started to sink from the sky - but they still didn’t shift back. Instead they yowled at the door of the bus, until they heard Ryan swearing and grumbling on his way to open it, at which point they rushed past his ankles and slunk into the back room to curl up together on one of the many large cushions that were spread across the floor.

It felt so good to give into the animal side for a few hours; foxes were affectionate by nature, and as nice as it was to cuddle with Chris every now and then _(not that Ricky would ever stroke the feline’s already huge ego by admitting it)_ it was even better with a fellow fox. More relaxing, more grounding…more settling. It was all too easy to fall asleep in fox form, Des’s head tucked under his chin, and her shoulder pressed firmly against his.

_Best night sleep I’ve had in years._

Ricky admitted as much when they woke up and shifted back, and Des agreed with another brilliant smile.

“We’ll do it again next month?”

“Why wait that long?” Des grinned.

Ricky beamed right back: “Good point.”

They were about to go and scrounge up breakfast from the cupboards, since the bus had long since started moving on to the next venue, and then look up the next area they were going to be in to see if there was anywhere good to run in nearby, when the door to the back room was slammed open and they were greeted with a glaring Chris.

He looked every inch the pissy cat he was…but that didn’t mean Ricky didn’t take a step back when Chris lifted a hand to point at them ominously, and saw that Des did the exact same thing, at the exact same time. Ricky understood why.

You didn’t piss off cats, no matter who you or what you were.

They got _mean_ , and they got mean _fast_.

“If you two start anymore of that horrifying scream-y yowling shit again,” Chris threatened them, knowing full well what Des and Ricky were thinking: “I will stalk you. I will find you. And I will yowl right back until your ears bleed.”

Ricky looked at Des: “He probably would. He’s done it before to the wolves when their howling got on his nerves.”

Des just looked mischievous: “All I’m hearing is all of us should yowl at the wolves just because we can.”

“Smart, Des,” Chris smirked: “Appealing to the one thing I like more than stopping things that irritate me.”

“Irritating other people?” Des asked.

“Exactly.”

And just like that, it was a plan.

Ricky couldn't wait.

**Author's Note:**

> I had so much fun writing this one, I'm not even sorry it's long.


End file.
